Western Civilization ch 19

Terms from chapter 19

STUDY

PLAY

Beethoven

ensured that the symphony would be an adaptable vehicle for the expression of creative genius; progressively modified the standard formulas, enlarged the orchestra, and wrote movements of increasing intricacy

David

a brilliant painter in the neoclassical style; skilfully celebrated the values of the ancient world; painted The Death of Socrates; overwhelmed the public with his vivid imagery and the emotional force of his compositions; became the most engaged and triumphant painter of the French Revolution

deism

a belief that recognised God as the Creator but held that the world, once created, functioned according to natural laws without interference by God; humanity lives essentially on its own in an ordered universe, without hope or fear of divine intervention and without the threat of damnation or the hope of eternal salvation

Diderot

was a writer of the Encyclopedia; the son of a provincial knife maker; was educated in Jesuit schools; his most original writings examined the role of passion in human personality and in any system of values derived from an understanding of human nature

freemasonry

an important form of cultural sociability; often crossed the lines of class and (less commonly) of gender; its lodges operated in an aura of secretiveness and symbolism; fostered a curious mixture of spirituality and rationalism; toward the end of the century was torn by sectarian controversies

Goethe

the writer who came to embody the new ambitions of poets, novelists, and dramatists; a friend of Schiller and many of the German writers and philosophers of the day; inspired a literary movement known as Sturm und Drang, which emphasised strong artistic emotions and gave early intimations of the romantic temperament; wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther; joined the circle of the duke who ruled the small city-state of Weimar, where he remained for the rest of his life; his masterpiece was Faust

Mary Wollstonecraft

wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Montesquieu

wrote The Spirit of the Laws; introduced relativism; argued that no single, ideal model of government existed; implied that all societies could learn from the British about liberty; said political liberty required checks on those who held power in a state, whether that power was exercised by a king, an aristocracy, or the people

natural history

the most widely followed scientific enterprise in the eighteenth century; the science of the earth's development; a combination of geology, zoology, and botany; its foremost practitioner was G. L. Buffon

novels

emerged as a form of fiction that told its story and treated the development of personality in a realistic social context; seemed to mirror their times better than other forms of fiction; most focused on family life and everyday problems of love, marriage, and social relations

periodicals

in one model, each issue consisted of a single essay that sought in elegant but clear prose to raise the reader's standard of morality and taste; one was The Female Spectator; one in France was Journal des Dames; more learned periodicals specialised in book reviews and serious articles on science in philosophy

philosophes

a group of French intellectuals; saw themselves as a vanguard, the men who raised the Enlightenment to the status of a self-conscious movement; led by Voltaire and Diderot; shared above all else a critical spirit, the desire to reexamine the assumptions and institutions of their societies and expose them to the tests of reason, experience, and utility; had to publish their works in secret

Pierre Bayle

propounded the idea of toleration; wrote Critical and Historical Dictionary; his chief target was Christianity's attempts to impose orthodoxy at any cost; a devout Calvinist

republic of letters

devolvement of the sense of a cosmopolitan European culture; phrase popularised by Pierre Bayle; in one sense an exclusive republic, limited to the educated; also an open society to which people of talent could belong regardless of their social origins; European intellectuals felt that it was a model for a public sphere in which political and social issues could be debated freely as well; organised around the salons and the academies

Rousseau

arguably the most original and influential eighteenth-century thinker; said the basis of morality was conscience, not reason; wrote Julie, or the New Heloise and Emile, or Treatise on Education; fathered and abandoned an illegitimate child; attacked the pretensions of his fellow philosophes, whom he considered arrogant, cynical, and lacking in spirituality

salons

sought to bring together important writers with the influential persons they needed for favours and patronage; helped to enlarge the audience and contacts of the philosophes by introducing them to a flow of foreign visitors; placed a premium on elegant conversation and wit; a forum in which men learned to take women seriously

Samuel Richardson

the acknowledged pioneer of the novel; wrote Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

satire

allowed philosophes to criticise their society covertly and avoid open clashes with the censors

The Social Contract

Rousseau's most enduring work; became famous only after the French Revolution dramatised the issues that it had raised; was meant as an ideal standard against which readers might measure their own society; said individuals had a role in making the law to which they submitted

Voltaire

Francois-Marie Arouet; his chief talents lay in literature and criticism; spent some time studying Newton's work; in 1738 published Elements of the Philosophy of Newton; said physics freed the mind from dogma; wrote Philosophical Letters on the English